Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-07-05

Which never smites but ever wards
The lowliest in her land.
But heark en- o loyal subjectsl
Keep ever well In view,
| Her heritage of landed leagues
Swinging under tn. dome of blue;
| Guard close from the grasping alien
This blossoming stretch OF world,
| And keep for her native children
Homes under her flag unfurled.
And whenevsr a scheming bastard
Paints the sky with crimson flag,
Or the anarchist prates from the gutter
With his tainted breath of brag,
Strike hard 'gainst their cursed teachings
As your sires SO long ago
Struck gives from the wrists.of Freedom
With the might of a giants blow.
And the stars in her noble ensign
VIII increase, and grow brighter yet,
As glitters the sun. kissed Jewels
In royal coronet,
While forever from North to Southland
And fore yer from sea to sea
The loyal-hearted will keep this day
OF Liberty's Jubileei
THE GRAFTON.
The orator of the day, Calvin Edger-
ton, was introduced by Mayor Work
man. He spoke substantially as follows:
Mr.. President, ladies and fellow. citi-
zens-Your honorable Mayor has stated
that you were to be addressed by an elo.
quent man, and hence want you to un-
derstand that he means me, and if in my
address before you to-day could only
rise to the eloquence of the situation /
should be happy. As l sat here listening
to the excellent reading of the Declara-
tion of Independence to-day, the story
of an old Massachusetts, farmer, ON q
similar occasion, leaked through my
memory. He was asked how he enjoyed
it. Splendid, he replied. "You
heard the oration" "Yes; heard two
of 'em." swell, what do you
think Of them!" Well, a fellow
got up and talked, and talked, till he
reminded me of fathers old donkey, that
sticks his head in q barrel and brays.
and brays, until he thinks he's speaking
to the whole universe. But after that
another fellow was called up. and he
called this speech the Declaration of
Independence, and I tell you 1t was the
grandest oration 1 ever heard" The
Declaration of Independence is the
oration of the occasion, and proclaim
that it is the best thought of the best
people today. Its principles are broad
and deep, and it shines in glory and
honor in every star and every stripe of
our flag, and what is far better in every
one of the hearts of all the people. /
come here to offer my little tribute of
honor to that Declaration today, and
the train of my thoughts is brought
out by the utteranoe taken from.
an English author, and quoted from ..
pulpit in your city yesterday. "a
Government of the people, for the peo--
pie and by the people may sound well,
but it is an impracticable dream" 1
stand on the principles of that declara-
ton to-day and say that it is a lie. I
say that when Jefferson penned that
dec laration, when Congress adopted it,
when the army went forth to fight for it,
they vindicated it for all time-forever.
Ii there are wrongs and abuses in our
form of government, if evils have arisen
from popular suffrage, we may 20 back
to that declaration and there, and there
alone, find the remedy. Consider the
spirit of that declaration. Our fathers
made no hostile demonstration against
peoole or nations of contrary opinion,
and to-day when the theories
of government are subversive
to all true freedom, it is
well for us to get back to that declara--
tion and see how these great men did ON
that great and mcmentous occasion.
They asserted the truth. The magma
charsa is extolled throughout English
history and every Briton points to it ss
the source of the rights of personal
liberty. But mark the difference be-
tween that document and our Declara-
tion of Independence. The magma
charta was concession from sovereign
and it was sifted down through the lines
of Earls and Dukes in small doses to
the common people. 1t was from q
sovereign, to whom it was believed to
belong by Divine authority, to the peo-
pie of the empire. Our fathers came
forward asserting the rights of man,
asserting the selfhood of the individual.
The declaration represents the rights of
man crowned with diadem, jeweled in
heaven. In the grand course of the
words "When in the course of human
events" etc., not by any system of
philosophy but by God Almighty. and
no government has the right to deprive
us of those rights.
I say that the Republic is not an ideal
government. Where does the govern
ment get its power? Was it from a di.
vine right of an individual to govern
the masses? This declaration says that
the government gets it spower from the
consent Of the governed. Does such
government not require intelligence for
its maintenance? When a man says
that the results Of such government is
evil, | say no. When abuses become in
tolerable the people do but assert their
rights when they rise up and demand
the power that is vested in them. The
Declaration of Independence is the
grand chart by which the republic must
be governed. For years in the history
of the government it was assailed with
deadly influence, ostenslbly underlying
the declaration, but how grandly did the
republic pass through that struggled If
we consider what will sustain the life
giving principle of the nation, whence
the government d rives its power and
intelligence, we are brought back to the
knowledge of the declaration in which
the government has been SO successfully
administrated. The principles enforced
ihP that famous document should be
taught in every school from the primary
to the college, and it should not be said
as was once remarked by a prominent
writer, that we graduate our boys stuffed
with Greek and Latin, but not one of
them would be able to tell whether
Christ was crucified on Calvary or Bunker
Hill. Based as our methods are on the
intelligence of the people it is the duty
of our educators to see that they are
thoroughly grated into the minds Of our
| youth. And out of that Declaration
comes the constitution, and this could
never have been framed had 1t not been
for the previous adoption by the COM
mon vaonle of the Daclaratinn of